The best thing about the interweb in the library it is. As a child, from the time I could pedal my tricycle the six blocks to the public library I was a voracious reader, maxing out my card and poring through each and every book I could lay my hands on in every subject that piqued my interests, from owls and rockets to caves and chemistry. As I got older and started to earn money, I haunted used book stores and yard sales, building my collections of antique and rare printings, ever hungry for obscure and forbidden knowledge. How do you embalm, build a guillotine, make a roman candle, or a tesla coil?
Finding these things on the internet takes a bit of sifting through the ads and bullshit, and its even worse now days with all the fear and fuckery surrounding any curiosity about explosives, or germs, or structural detail about historical buildings. A good cross reference guiding you to direct sources of knowledge and original books is wonderful. I can find an 18th century book on processing tin, or a 1920's book on manufacturing barbituates. Nothing like home cooking from scratch.
Long life and love to the scribes. They've made civilization possible for us all.
